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Sacred Texts Buddhist Articles
The Sutra of firm establishment in all doctrine, describing clearly the secret merit and attainments in the religious life of Tathâgata, who appears as Buddha in his great and unsurpassed stature; also the many acts of the Bodhisattwas.
IT is called also Chung-yin-tu-na-lan-to-ta-tau-ch'ang-king. "The Sutra of Nalanda, the great seat of worship, in Central India."
The monastery of Nalanda, in the kingdom of Magadha, the present Bahar, was of great size, and lasted through more than seven centuries. The Chinese traveller Hiuen-tsang visited it. He found there ten thousand monks living in six buildings erected by as many monarchs, forming together one great ascetic establishment, the most splendid in India. It was celebrated as a place of study both for the Brahmanical books and those of Buddhism, and was devoted to the study of that branch of Buddhist doctrine called the "Greater Development." For legends connected with this flourishing seat of Buddhism, the translation by M. Julien of Hiuen-tsang's travels, from which I have derived these facts, may be consulted. It lay about thirty miles south-east of the modern Patna.
The Chinese translation of the Leng-yen-king was made in the year 705 A.D., by Paramiti, a Hindoo Buddhist monk at Canton. He was assisted by Yung-pi, a Chinese, and p. 290 Migashakya, a native of Udyana, a country lying north-west of Cashmere.
Thus have I heard:--On a time, Buddha was at the city Shravasti, in the chapel in the grove of Jeta. He was there with twelve hundred and fifty Bikshus, his disciples, who had all attained the rank of Arhan. These children of Buddha were at rest in their minds, grasping firmly the doctrine of their master, and excelling in goodness. They might in any country be patterns of virtue and dignity. They attended to the "monastic rules" (Vinaya) with exemplary carefulness. Assuming without limitation whatever bodily form was needed, they could save men from misery. Their names were Shariputra, Maha Maudgalyayana, Maha Kuhila, the son of Puruna, Mitarani, Subhûti, Upanishata, and others.
Besides these, innumerable Pratyekas, together with many who had just begun to desire improvement in knowledge, came to the place where Buddha was, at the close of summer, repenting of their former evil acts.
Remarks.--Shravasti was situated in what is now the province of Oude. Pratyekas are called in Chinese either P'it-ti, or P'it-ti-ka-la. They are in Sanscrit denominated "Pratyeka" Buddha, and in Chinese Yuen-kioh, "those who have attained intelligence by the study of causes." When a period occurs in the world's history without a Buddha, the Pratyekas appear, and, arriving at the perception of doctrine in his absence, take his place as teacher till he arrives.
It happened to be the time when the Bikshus at the close of summer were released from restraint. From every region Bodhisattwas came to ask questions and have their doubts removed. They listened respectfully, and sought to know the secret thoughts of their teacher. Tathâgata sat in a tranquil attitude, and addressed to his audience profound doctrines which they had not before heard. His voice, like the singing of the Kalavingka, penetrated to the boundaries of the world. Bodhisattwas, numerous as p. 291 the sands of the Ganges, crowded to the assembly, and Manjusiri was chief among them.
At this time king Prasenajit had, in memory of his father's death, prepared a vegetable repast for Buddha. He invited Buddha to the interior apartments of his palace, and came himself to conduct him in. He also invited the Bodhisattwas.
In the city there was a man of rank who had also bidden the monks to a feast, and was waiting the arrival of Buddha. Buddha directed Manjusiri to send some of the Bodhisattwas and Arhans to attend the feast in place of himself.
Ananda alone had been invited elsewhere at some distance, and had not returned. He was too late to take his place with the others, and there was no older monk with him nor an A-je-li to admonish him. He was coming back alone and empty-handed. As he passed along the streets he held in his hand a rice bowl, and asked alms from door to door. He was desiring that he might be entertained by some one who had not already invited the monks. He would not ask if the viands were pleasant to the taste or not, whether the host was of the Kshatrya caste, or belonged to the Chendaras. Feeling the same kind disposition towards rich and poor, he did not choose honour in preference to poverty, but was anxious that all with whom he met should obtain unmeasured happiness (by almsgiving).
Ananda knew that Buddha had blamed Subhûti and Kashiapa, because they had not obtained the evenhanded justice of the Arhans, and he had reverently listened to his wise advice for relieving scruples and preventing suspicions and slanders.
He crossed the moat, and slowly approached the gate. His demeanour was grave. It was that of one who reverently observed the dietetic regulations.
He passed on his way the house of a prostitute, and fell under the influence of enchantment. Matenga, by means p. 292 of a charm obtained from Brahma by one of the Sabikaras, drew him to her couch, and he was about to break his vow of chastity.
Tathâgata knew that he had been enthralled by the charm. On returning from the repast to which he had been invited, the king, his courtiers, and many persons of reputation in the city, came to hear Buddha discourse. Light shone from the head of Tathâgata, seeming to combine the several rays of all precious stones. Out of this mild radiance was seen to spring a lotus flower with a profusion of petals, and upon it Buddha sat crosslegged with metamorphosed body, uttering a mighty charm. He sent this charm by the hand of Manjusiri to save Ananda. The messenger went, and the influence of the wicked charm being broken, he brought Ananda with Matenga to the presence of Tathâgata.
Remarks.--The bird called Kalavingka had a very soft, rich voice.
Prasenajit, the king of Shravasti, was very favourable to the Buddhist religion. It was his minister Sudatta who bought the garden of Jeta from the prince of that name, and erected in it a residence for Buddha. (See Julien's Memoires sur les Contrées Occidentales.) Many of the Sutras attributed to Buddha are said to have been delivered here. At the time of Hiuen-tsang's visit the city was mostly in ruins. He observed the remains of the monastery formerly standing on the site of the garden of Jeta, two miles below the city. (See Julien's Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen-thsang). It was here that the Bikshus assembled to listen to Buddha.
During three months in summer the Bikshus lived in seclusion, forbidden to travel or to see Buddha. At the end of this time they met before Buddha, and gave liberty to each other to point out any faults in their conduct, in order that they might undergo a penance appointed by Buddha.
The word A-je-li means an instructor in the ascetic discipline. It was required that, in going to a distance, at least three should be in company. A monk in the position of Ananda should have had with him a superior in rank and also an A-je-li.
When Buddhism was flourishing in India, the Kshatryas and Chendaras were at the two extremes of the social scale. The kings p. 293 and nobles belonged to the Kshatrya caste. The Chendaras were butchers, and belonged to various humble trades.
Subhûti asked alms only from the rich, because they were able to give. Kashiapa preferred to beg of the poor, desiring to increase their happiness. Buddha blamed them both for transgressing the rule of justice.
The Sabikaras were a heretical sect, with brown hair, who fasted on rice. They obtained this charm by special worship of the god Brahma. It was capable of being communicated to others, and Matenga made use of it.
The commentator, Te-ts'ing, a Chinese Buddhist monk of the Ming dynasty, says that a superficial reader might wonder why this Sutra, which unveils the hidden nature of man, points out a secure place of rest, and unfolds a doctrine in all respects complete, should make such an ordinary incident as the temptation of Ananda its point of departure. He says, in explanation, that it is the passions which prevent men from attaining the Nirvâna. Among the passions sensual lust is the most powerful, and therefore it needs a remedy of corresponding strength to remove it.
Ananda, on seeing Buddha, bowed his head to the ground and bitterly wept. He grieved that he had not yet made a successful beginning and that, after all the instruction he had received, he should still be deficient in moral strength. With earnestness he asked to know how the Buddhas of all worlds had obtained entrance to the region of rest and contemplation.
The auditors, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, sat silent, waiting for Buddha to address them.
He then said to Ananda:--"You and I are akin by birth. We are thus caused by heaven to love each other. You formerly felt a desire to follow my teaching. What beautiful appearance was it which led you to forsake the world's deep love?" Ananda replied: "I saw the thirty-two beauties of Tathâgata.1 They are inexpressibly lovely, and the bodily form to which they belong is transparent as crystal. I reflected that such a form cannot be produced by earthly love. Because the bodily desires are p. 294 coarse and ill-smelling lusts, and they cannot give origin to a pure bright form radiating a purple golden light like that of Tathâgata; therefore I thirsted to follow Buddha and be shorn of my hair, in token of my abandonment of a worldly life."
Buddha replied:--"you speak well, Ananda. All men continue to live and die, and live and die again, because they do not know that the mind should rest in a state of constant purity, and their nature be kept clear and true to itself. Ideas arise in their minds which are not true, and perforce they enter the wheel of ceaseless revolution. If you would attain the highest knowledge and develop your true nature in its clearness, answer honestly my inquiries. The Buddhas have trodden one path to escape from life and death. They have kept their hearts right. Their hearts and words were right, and they have therefore begun well and ended well. Thus they have no wrong thoughts or pernicious changes. I now ask you, Ananda, when your heart was attracted towards the thirty-two beauties of Tathâgata, what was it that saw, and what was it that loved?" Ananda replied: "This love came from the use of my heart and my eye. My eye saw the transcendent beauty of Buddha, and my heart felt love. Therefore it was that I desired to become freed from life and death."
Buddha answered:--"Since this love came from the heart and the eye, you must know where these organs reside; otherwise you cannot overcome the evils caused by the 'objects of sense' (ch'en). When a country is ravaged, the troops sent to chastise the marauders must know where they are to be found. I ask, then, where the heart and eye, the enemies who have done you harm, reside?"
Remarks.--The passions are the cause of men being subject to life and death. To set them at rest is the means of attaining to the state of Buddha. Ananda had been led away by passion, and he asks to p. 295 be reinstructed in the mode of escape. He felt the evil to he great, and that some very powerful agency was needed to destroy it. He desired to commence self-reformation afresh, but not knowing where to begin, he asks for information. The first step is to observe, contemplate, and loosen the heart from its attachments.
Buddha does not proceed at once to describe the three modes of contemplation, but first inquires of him why, in the first instance, he had commenced the ascetic life. The answer of Ananda revealed the cause of his want of success. Love had been awakened in his mind by the sight of beautiful forms. This was because his mode of thinking was wrong. He had only exchanged one love for another. His heart had been attracted by a beautiful vision; but he had not seen Buddha in his higher character. If he was right in loving Buddha, might he not also love Matenga?
Not only is Ananda the victim of wrong thoughts. All men are so; and therefore it is that they do not emerge from the region of life and death. But man's true nature cannot be developed where wrong thoughts prevail. The exciting causes of this wrong state of things must be examined into. It is the work of the senses. The senses are the six enemies that disturb the original tranquillity of man's nature. These six thieves, as they are called, are ruled by the heart and the eye. The place where they reside must be discovered.
The answer of Ananda was that "living beings, of all the ten different kinds, without exception regard the perceiving faculty and the heart or mind as being within the body. They also see that Buddha's eye forms a part of Buddha's countenance. This eye of mine and three other organs of sense are a part of my face. My 'heart' (mind), then the perceiving organ, is certainly within my body."
Buddha replied to him:--"You are sitting in this house. You see the grove of Jeta. I ask you where it is?" "It is," answered Ananda, "outside of this hall. This house is in the garden of Anáthapindika. And assuredly the grove is outside of the house." Buddha again inquired: "In this house what do you first see?" Ananda replied: "I first see Tathâgata, then the audience, and farther off the trees and the garden." Buddha continued: "In looking p. 296 towards the trees and the garden, how do you perceive them?" Ananda replied: "By the door and other openings." Buddha then stretched out his golden arm, and touching the head of Ananda, said: "There is a samadhi called that of the Sheu-leng-yen Rajah, who is Buddha-like in size and stature. It embraces all good actions, and describes how all the Buddhas were rescued from the world of sense and entered the glorious path that leads to confirmed rest. Listen!" Ananda made a prostration, and waited to hear.
Remarks.--Hiuen-tsang relates that the grove of Jeta is "six li" (two miles) south of the city Shravasti. In this grove was the garden of Anáthapindika or Anáthapindada. At the time when the Chinese traveller visited it, the convent which was formerly there was in ruins. Jeta sold the land to Sudatta, and himself gave the grove. Anáthapindika means "He who gives to orphans." Sudatta was so named on account of his charities.
Samadhi is a sort of waking dream or reverie, occurring to Buddha or his disciples when engaged in deep contemplation, and in which an impression or vision teaching certain religious dogmas seems present to the mind's eye.
The commentator Te-ts'ing remarks that men generally fall into the error of Ananda. They think that the mind is enclosed in the visible body. Continuance in the sphere of the metempsychosis arises from men's mistaken opinion that the body, the mind, and "their actions" (wu-yün) constitute myself. This false view must be first combated. Buddha, being about to subvert the cherished opinions of Ananda, kindly placed his hand upon his head to inspire him with confidence, lest he should feel pained.
Buddha:--"According to what you say you are in this hall, and through the open doors you see the garden and the grove. If you could not see Tathâgata, would you be able to see what is outside of the hall?"
Ananda:--"That could not be."
Buddha:--"This to your mind is perfectly clear. Now, if that mind which perceives it be within the body, men ought first to see what is within the body and afterwards p. 297 what is outside. Since we do not see the heart, liver, and other viscera, while we can perceive the growth of nails and hair, and the movements of muscles and pulses, the heart cannot reside within the body."
Ananda (bowing):--"As I hear the instructions of Tathâgata, I am made to perceive the truth, that my mind resides outside of my body. For it is like a lamp lighted in a house. It first shines on what is within the house, and then through the door upon the portico. Since men see only what is outside the body, the perceiving mind cannot reside within them. This statement is incontrovertibly right."
Buddha:-- When these Bikshus come to seek me in this city of Shravasti, and assemble at the grove of Jeta, should you see one of them eating, would all of them be thereby relieved from hunger?"
Ananda:--"No! for although they were Arhans and share in a different kind of existence, how could one man's taking food remove hunger from the rest?"
Buddha:--"The mind and body being entirely separate from each other, neither of them can know what is known to the other. I now show you my hand. Your eye sees it, but does your mind distinguish it?"
Ananda:--"Yes, Honoured Chief of the world!"
Buddha:--"If both perceive it, then it is wrong to say that they are separate from each other, and that the mind dwells outside of the body."
Ananda:--"Buddha has said that the mind, not seeing what is within the body, cannot reside there. Further, he has said that when the mind and body both know what is known to the other, they cannot be outside of each other, but must be in one place."
Buddha:--"Where, then, is the mind placed?"
Ananda:--"I think it must be hidden in the organs of sense. The eye is to the mind like a piece of glass which does not interfere with vision. Whenever the eye sees, p. 298 the mind at once distinguishes. The reason why the mind does not see the interior of the body is because it resides in the sensorial organs, and its position there enables it to notice objects outside of the body."
Buddha:--"Supposing that it is so, I ask what a man will see when a glass is placed before his eyes? When he sees the hills and mountains beyond, will he see the glass also?"
Ananda:--"He will see the glass."
Buddha:--"If so, why should not the eye be seen at the time when hills and rivers are visible through it? But if the eye be seen it is a part of the scenery observed by the mind, and there is no interdependence between the two, so that the mind should at once perceive what is an object of vision to the eye. But if the mind does not see the eye, then it cannot be said that the mind resides in the organs of sense."
Ananda:--"I have now thought upon another thing. The viscera are in the interior of the body, while the various apertures are outside. There is darkness in the one and light in the other. While I look at Buddha my eye is open and sees light. In this case I see what is external. When I close my eyes I see darkness. In this case I see what is internal. Is this a correct distinction?"
Buddha:--"When you close your eyes and look on darkness, is the darkness which you see 'objective to the eye' (wei-ü-yen-tui), or not? If the darkness be objective, it is something before the eye, and it is therefore wrong to say that it is internal. If, on the other hand, the darkness be internal, then the darkness you see in a room where no light can enter is nothing but the interior of your body. If, however, the darkness be not 'objective' (tui) to the eye, it cannot be said to be seen. If the darkness be internal, and is yet seen objectively by the eye, why do you not see your face when with open eyes you look p. 299 on brightness? If you see your face, the perceiving mind with the organ of vision must be in vacancy. They cannot then be within the body, nor can they be a part of it. For if they were a part of your body, then I who now see your face should be part of your body. By means of your eye which is in vacancy, you know that your body does not perceive objects. You must therefore hold that there are two acts of perceiving and two perceiving agents. You would thus become two persons. It cannot therefore be said, that in closing the eye and looking on darkness you see what is within."
Ananda:--"I have heard Buddha say that actions spring from the mind, and the mind from action (i.e., mind and action are necessary to each other, and equally unreal). It appears to me that my thoughts are my mind, and that wherever my thought is, there is my mind. Thus the seat of the mind need not be within or without, or in an intermediate position."
Buddha:--"The mind, Ananda, cannot be where the thought is; for it is without 'substance' (t'i), and cannot be at any place. For if an unsubstantial thing could be said to be at a place, the eighteen limiting points which excite sensations would become nineteen, and the six objects of sense would become seven. But that the mind is unsubstantial can easily be shown. When I touch myself with my hand, the knowing mind (the resulting act of knowledge) must come from within outwards, or from without inwards. If the former, the interior of the body would be visible; if the latter, I should first see my face. Since I see neither, my mind must be unsubstantial."
Ananda:--"It is the eye that sees; though it is not the eye that knows. To say that the mind sees is incorrect."
Buddha:--"If the eye could see, the door of the house in which you are might also be able to see. The eye of the dead sees nothing. Further, Ananda, the mind, if it has p. 300 substance, must be one substance or many. Your mind must pervade your entire body or not. If your mind be a single substance, when you touch one limb all the limbs should feel the pressure. If it were felt everywhere, the sensation would not be referred to any particular spot. If the sensation belongs to one part, you who are the subject of it cannot form a single substance. But neither can you be many substances, for then you would be many men. If the substance of your mind pervade your entire body, a sensation of pressure would be felt in every part. If it pervaded the body partially, a portion of it would be susceptible to touch, while the remaining parts were not so. Since this is not the case, your supposition, that the mind is wherever thought is, falls to the ground."
Ananda:--"Formerly I heard Buddha discoursing with Manjusiri and others on the true nature of things which appear. You then said the mind is neither within nor without the body. It seems to me that without interior perception there can be no external knowledge. What is in the body must be perceived, if we are to know what is outside of the body; else the mind cannot be within the body at all. As it is, we only perceive what is outside, and not what is within. The mind, therefore, must be neither within nor without, but between the two."
Buddha, in his reply, argues that Ananda is wrong, and that the place of the mind is not between the inside and the outside, any more than it is within the body or without in the material things which are the objects of sensations.
So ends the first chapter of this book.
Remarks.--The eighteen limiting "boundaries" (kiai) of the sensations are--eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, colour, sound, smell, taste, "contact" (chu), law, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking.
These eighteen items are otherwise arranged as six roots, the sensorial organs, six kinds of dust, colour, taste, smell, &c., and six kinds of sensational knowledge.
The second group of six are also called the six thieves, as being the causes of delusion to all mankind who believe in matter.
The first six are also called the six subjects that "love" (ai), and the six things that "feel" (ts'ing).
1 "Tathâgata," an appellation of Buddha, is, in Chinese, Ju-lai, "Calmly approaching."


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Holy Cow!
The red heifer, the "holy cow" which features so prominently in the Torah portion of this week, played a double role in the history of our people.
The apparent purpose of slaughtering this animal and burning it was to provide the ashes that would be part of the purification process for a Jew who had become ritually impure because of contact with the dead. Our Sages, however, saw this as also serving as an atonement for the sin of the golden calf. They compare this to the situation of a child dirtying the palace of the king, requiring the mother to clean up. The golden calf spiritually contaminated the Jewish People, and its virtual mother — the red heifer — was called upon to remove the filth.
One of the requirements for the red heifer was that a yoke was never placed upon it. This was to atone for the removal of the yoke of responsibility expressed in abandoning G-d for the golden calf. The moral of the story is that when Jews feel free to "take their destiny into their own hands" and abandon their responsibility as a Torah people, the inevitable result is a golden calf and the tragedy it triggered.
May reflecting on the need for a red heifer atonement serve to remind us of our responsibility to Heaven which alone can secure Israel forever.

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LESPÉRANCE (Rocheleau, dit Lespérance), PIERRE, silversmith; b. 19 Dec. 1819 at Quebec City, son of André Rocheleau, dit Lespérance, a cabinet-maker, and Charlotte Sasseville; m. first 20 Feb. 1865 Catherine Bélanger (d. June 1868); m. secondly 23 Feb. 1870 Elizabeth Hill; d. 23 April 1882 in Quebec City.
Through an agreement made by his father on 20 June 1836, Pierre Lespérance was engaged "in the capacity of an apprentice silversmith to M. Laurent Amiot [*] master silversmith, for the entire period that remains until he attains the age of twenty-one years." Lespérance "binds himself to do all the tasks that may be demanded of him, whether by the said Sieur Amiot or by any other persons supervising hisbshop his workshop." Amiot always insisted that a notary use the exact word intended, and the result sheds light on his personality and on the organization of work in his establishment. In this instance he crossed out the word "shop," implying the store where customers came to buy products, and replaced it with "workshop," meaning the place where craftsmen laboured; he also crossed out the word "trade" of silversmith, substituting the "art" of silversmithing. Amiot was not in sole charge of his atelier: in fact Lespérance would have to obey "other persons." His own uncle, François Sasseville*, who rented Amiot's workshop and store after his death in June 1839, comes immediately to mind. Since the apprenticeship contract did not expire until December 1840, it may be assumed that Lespérance continued his training under Sasseville.
The professional links between the two silversmiths are still obscure. In October 1850 the Provincial Industrial Exhibition in Montreal awarded a prize of £3 5s. to "Sasseville and Lespérance" for a chalice they had entered. Yet if Lespérance was Sasseville's associate and shared the prize, one must ask why his name was not mentioned in the glowing appreciation of this object that appeared in Le Journal de Québec on 17 October. Sasseville left the old shop of Laurent Amiot, on Rue de la Montagne, around 1852 and established himself on Côté du Palais. This move may have coincided with a change in the relationship between Sasseville and Lespérance. John E. Langdon has, indeed, suggested that the two formed a partnership in 1854. In 1856 Lespérance also had a store on Rue du Palais; hence one is tempted to assume that they shared the same establishment. However, Lespérance seems to have enjoyed some degree of professional autonomy, for he asserted that he himself had made articles of church silver which he sold to the parish of Saint-Joseph at Pointe-Lévy (Lauzon). He quickly recognized these articles when a burglar who had stolen them attempted to resell them to him in 1856, and he immediately turned the culprit over to the authorities.
Lespérance's name was again associated with Sasseville's in 1858; that year Lespérance used the technique of electroplating to gild for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Quebec City a monstrance which had "come from the workshop of M. Sasseville" six years earlier. These circumstances indicate the degree to which the career of Lespérance is inseparable from that of Sasseville until the latter died in 1864. Sasseville's will attests to the close bond between the two men; by its terms Lespérance received 100 shares in the Banque du Peuple, as well as Sasseville's workshop, store, and all his movables. The sole condition attached to this inheritance was that Lespérance should "fulfil all the obligations and complete all the works" to which Sasseville had committed himself and which were unfinished at the time of his death. Lespérance was also to have full authority over the financial operations of the enterprise. In March 1864 Lespérance announced in the papers "that the silversmith's establishment previously belonging to the late M. François Sasseville, on Rue du Palais, will be carried on in the name of the undersigned . . . [who] will continue to execute, as in the past, all the church silver and will do everything he can to deserve the patronage with which the clergy has always honoured this ancient establishment."
Lespérance was 44 years old when he embarked on this new chapter in his life, to last 18 years. The man remained as inconspicuous and unknown as he had been during Sasseville's lifetime. The main events of his private life in this period were his marriage, the birth of a son in January 1867, the death of his first wife in June 1868, and his remarriage. Apart from numerous liturgical vessels furnished to the clergy, and a few drawings and water-colours painted under the direction of his teacher, artist John Murray, his career was marked by the production of two articles of silver of a commemorative character. According to Le Journal de Québec, the first, a rather unusual piece executed in 1864, was an "exact miniature copy, on a scale of half an inch to the foot, of the column raised on the heights of Sainte-Foye to the heroes of the two nations who fought in 1759, one for the conquest, and the other for the defence of Canada. All [the details] of this work are exquisitely finished and the artist's skill is manifest in every part of this gem of a monument." This "magnificent work" was offered to the French consul at Quebec, "Baron [Charles-Henri-Philippe] Gauldrée-Boilleau, in memory of his services and of his benevolence." The second commemorative object was a trowel "presented to Her Royal Highness Princess Louise . . . at the laying of the foundations of the Kent Gate," at Quebec City in 1879. Le Journal de Québec of 14 June praised the engraver Torcapel, who had done the decorative details, commenting only briefly on the silversmith: "For the work of preparing [it, we are] indebted to M. Lespérance, whose ability in this type [of endeavour] is known." Commemorative silver was very popular at the end of the 19th century yet very little is known about objects of this type made by French-speaking Quebec craftsmen.
Ambroise-Adhémar Lafrance, who had worked as an apprentice under Sasseville, continued his training with Lespérance. After the latter's death in 1882, Lafrance ran the enterprise on his own, with the tools and models that had come down from Amiot's time. Lespérance and Lafrance, living anachronisms, were guardians of the traditional craft of church silver in an era of full-blown industrialization and commercialization. Thus, the silversmith Cyrille Gingras, who from 1888 worked in the important atelier of Cyrille Duquet, declared in an interview published in 1938 that "the other important shop in the city [of Quebec] during this period [1882–1905] was that of Father Lafrance, who operated under the name of l'Espérance . . . in a house belonging to the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu on the corner of Rue Charlevoix and Côte du Palais."
Robert Derome with the collaboration of Sylvio Normand
[Articles crafted by Pierre Lespérance can be found in major public and private collections, in particular at the Musée du Québec (Québec) and in the Henry Birks Collection of Silver at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa). Several parish councils of the Quebec City region own pieces of his work. r.d. and s.n.]
ANQ-Q, État civil, Catholiques, Notre-Dame de Québec, 20 déc. 1819, 20 févr. 1865, 23 févr. 1870; Minutiers, A.-A. Parent, 20 juin 1836, 2 juill. 1839; A.-B. Sirois-Duplessis, 30 nov. 1863. IBC, Centre de documentation, Fonds Morisset, 2, A517/L382; G492.5/C997.5; L169.5/A495.1; R673/P622. Musée du Québec, A-53.85-d. Le Journal de Québec, 17, 22, 26 oct. 1850;14 juin 1853; 3 avril 1855; 6 sept. 1856; 27 mars 1858; 17 mars, 23 août 1864; 23 févr. 1865; 12 janv. 1867; 16 juin 1868; 23 févr. 1870; 14 juin 1879; 24 avril 1882. Quebec directory, 1854–62. J. E. Langdon, Canadian silversmiths, 1700–1900 (Toronto, 1966). Gérard Morisset, Le Cap-Santé, ses églises et son trésor (2e éd., C. Beauregard et al., édit., Montréal, 1980). G.-H. Dagneau, "La fabrication des vases sacrés se fera à Québec," L'Action catholique (Québec), 14 avril 1938: 24. Gérard Morisset, "Nos orfèvres canadiens: Pierre Lespérance (1819–1882)," Technique (Montréal), 22 (1947): 201–9.
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Robert Derome with the collaboration of Sylvio Normand, "LESPÉRANCE, PIERRE," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 26, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lesperance_pierre_11E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
Permalink: | http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lesperance_pierre_11E.html |
Author of Article: | Robert Derome with the collaboration of Sylvio Normand |
Title of Article: | LESPÉRANCE, PIERRE |
Publication Name: | Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11 |
Publisher: | University of Toronto/Université Laval |
Year of publication: | 1982 |
Year of revision: | 1982 |
Access Date: | February 26, 2024 |


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
With your building permit, the Building department will provide information about when and who to call for inspection(s). Building inspectors will inspect your work several times during the course of construction for things such as footings, framing, insulation, rough-in and mechanical work and building final inspection.
You will need to contact the Building department to schedule an inspection; no work shall proceed or be covered until the requested inspection has been signed off. An inspection card may be attached to your permits. You or your contractor should post the card on the site until completion of the final inspection. This card contains important information about the job and is used to record inspections performed.
Contact the Building department to arrange your inspection.
Show All Answers
City standards for service can be viewed under the Sewer and Water Services city ordinances (Chapter 9).
To officially request services you can use the standard Request for Improvements form as a guideline. Residents can submit their request for improvement to the City Administrator.
For questions regarding the ordinances or submitting a request, please contact the City Administrator.
Legally, the City of West Fargo has no jurisdiction in rear-yard drainage issues. Only certain catch basins within City easements can be addressed. If there is a problem at a catch basin, contact the Public Works department. For other drainage issues, such as excess fill or other blockages, the first course of action is to contact your neighbors.
The City Engineer can help mediate in backyard drainage problems, such as providing recommendations to help rectify or improve the situation, but cannot make enforceable decisions.
The City of West Fargo employs Moore Engineering, Inc. to plan and provide engineering services for the city.
For more information, visit the Engineer website.
The Renaissance Zone program is a tool to help cities revitalize their communities. By offering both state and local tax incentives for five years, both residents and business owners are provided with an incentive to invest in the community. This program is unique in that cities develop handcrafted development plans that address each city's specific goals.
For more information about the Renaissance Zone program in the City of West Fargo, visit the Economic Development website.
An appraisal is an estimate of the price that most people would likely pay for your house in its present condition. The average appraisal will take 15 to 20 minutes and will involve an outdoor and indoor inspection. Your annual property tax is based on this estimate of value.
The Assessor places a value, or appraises, all property in the city. These valuations determine the distribution of the property tax burden, not the total amount of taxes paid in the city. The determining factor of whether your taxes will increase or decrease is how the current assessed valuation relates to today's market value. The city conducts periodic reappraisals to assure that changes affecting market value are reflected in your assessed value. Any changes that occur from this reappraisal will not take affect until the tax bill you receive the following December.
To find your appraisal, visit the Assessor's Property Information Search site. You can find additional information on the Assessor's site.
Permits are required for additions, decks, porches, finishing basements, replacing doors & windows of different sizes, interior renovations or repair that include structural modifications, demolition work, accessory structures, swimming pools and re-siding. All HVAC systems require permits, including all gas appliances & equipment, wood stoves, etc. A building permit and/or a zoning permit may be required when a building use is changed.
Separate plumbing and electrical systems permits are required for the installation, alteration, relocation, replacement, or addition to any wiring, piping, or equipment or appliances associated with those systems.
Electrical permits are issued and inspections are performed by the North Dakota State Electrical Board (701) 499-1549.
Plumbing permits are issued and inspections are performed by the North Dakota State Plumbing Board (701) 799-1555.
Permits are not required to paint a house (interior or exterior), hang wallpaper, replace cabinets and do similar finish work. Permits are also not required to build an accessory building having a floor area of 120 square feet or less, install concrete sidewalks and patios entirely on your property. Finally, permits are not required to insulate an existing building where no structural changes are made.
If you have questions about whether you need a permit for the project you have in mind or to see if it meets zoning requirements, contact the Building department.
The City of West Fargo's building code requires building permits to be obtained before doing certain types of construction for all existing structures and all new residential and commercial construction and remodeling. Building permits allow the city to review all construction projects and ensure that meet the minimum requirements of the West Fargo building code and zoning requirements. A building permit also establishes a record of the construction and remodeling history of your property. Once the permits have been issued the building department will conduct onsite inspections to help ensure compliance the building code.
The building permit application is available on the buildings website.
You can apply online or in person at the Building Department office located at 800 Fourth Ave. E, Suite 1, West Fargo ND 58078.
Please contact the Planning Department with questions about a residential outdoor swimming pool at (701) 515-5370.
A majority of residential lots have a maximum of 30% total lot coverage for roofed structures, some lots can have up to 35% total lot coverage. You need to know the size of your lot, the square footage of your existing house and attached garage (footprint only) and any other detached structures. Please consult the Guideline for Building Accessory Use Structures for additional information.
Please contact the Building department and we can assist you in with this process if needed.
A building permit is required to install and replace all gas and electric heating and cooling appliances and equipment. Gas piping also requires a permit.
You can install and replace your own HVAC equipment. All equipment installed or replaced must adhere to the manufacturer's installation requirements and listed uses. All gas appliances and piping requires will also require a building permit and inspection prior to normal use.
You can search you address on the FEMA Flood Map Service or you can contact the Building department and we will help you.
Yes, we have numerous information handouts and guidelines listed on website.
Information requirements can vary depending upon your specific project. Handouts and checklists are available which describe the information required to submit an application.
Homeowners may prepare their own plans; however, the Building department may require a design professional or engineered plans to ensure building code compliance. Please allow adequate time for you or your representative to prepare the plans.
You can supply your own designs but those drawings need to be to scale and they must be neat and easily legible. No free-hand drawings will be accepted.
The Building department may require that a design professional or engineered plans may be necessary to ensure building code compliance.
Some permits, such as mechanical, re-siding, and re-roofing, can be issued at the time you apply, if time allows. Most other building permit applications may take up to four business days to process. However, it may take longer if the if the applications and building plans are not complete and accurate.
Applications for permits should be submitted well in advance of your scheduled starting date so that the Building department can help you through the process and issue your permit before you are ready to start work. This is especially true during the summer construction season.
There is a charge for permits:
For more information, contact the Building department.
The Building department provides various handouts on permit application procedures and requirements. This information is available on the City of West Fargo Website or at the West Fargo Building department office located at West Fargo City Hall (800 4th Avenue East Suite 1, West Fargo) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.


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Frailty assessment in the Global Burden of Disease study: Research of global patterns and determinants
The overall goal of this project is to utilize the Global Burden of Diseases study data to understand the patterns and dynamics of ageing, including construction and validation of a summary measure of frailty (i.e. "Frailty Index") that captures the burden of disease in older populations throughout the world. The Frailty Index will be used to measure patterns and determinants of frailty globally, in super-regions and even at country level as well as its impact in global health.
Active Dates
05/01/2018 to 05/31/2020
Faculty Involved
Health Topics


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Editor's note: This story was originally published Aug. 24, 2013.
A Catholic archbishop, a Jewish rabbi and a Baptist minister offered prayers. The internationally acclaimed "Queen of Gospel" Mahalia Jackson performed. And among the nine speakers were four religious leaders who exhorted the crowd to recognize their sins, repent and join the cause that would make them and their brothers and sisters free.
It may sound like a religious tent revival meeting, but it was in fact the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place 60 years ago this week. Originally the idea of a Black labor organizer, this seminal event of the Civil Rights movement was infused with faith, revealing then and now that religion was a primary source of strength behind the movement, scholars say.
"The Civil Rights movement emerged from churches and was guided by church leaders ... so it was natural that these people then became important leaders in the movement," said Richard Lischer, a professor of preaching at Duke Divinity School. "Secondly, everyone recognized that these clergy did have the power of language and could move people with the word."
And it was the preaching of Christian and Jewish leaders that took place Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an interracial mass of about 250,000 and millions more on television that became the most enduring memory of the historic gathering — particularly the famous "I Have a Dream" speech given by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a clergyman who became the most powerful figure of the Civil Rights era.
"What a lot of secular liberals have never understood about King is that religion wasn't just an opportunistic accessory. It was his driving force and utter motivation," said Jonathan Rieder, a sociologist who has written about the religious roots of King and the Civil Rights movement. "It was the source of their vision of justice."
Faith that God was on their side gave those in the Black Christian churches the will to withstand the abuse that came in response to their non-violent protest tactics, historians say. Faith also spurred white Christians and Jews into action in the months after the March on Washington as they responded to their religious leaders pointing out that segregation and racism didn't square with their own beliefs.
Awakening the churches
The massive march on Washington, D.C., came after a tumultuous nine months of violence and progress in the Civil Rights movement. Black church leaders, their congregations and other activists had taken a stand in Alabama, landing King in jail and sparking a violent backlash by police against people using the movement's peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience tactics.
At the same time, King and the civil rights organization over which he presided, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were reaching out to other faith groups in an effort to enlist them in the cause. In January, a gathering of religious leaders, including King, on the topic of racism and segregation was held in Chicago, and Jewish and Christian leaders agreed their congregations couldn't stand silently on the sidelines while Black people were cruelly discriminated against, often by practices within the white churches.
"King once made the observation that the most segregated hour in America was on Sunday when people attended church," said Aldon Morris, a sociologist at Northwestern University, who wrote "Origins of the Civil Rights Movement." "He felt the church hadn't stood up enough and supported the movement."
Several months after that meeting, King wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he condemned fellow Southern clergymen who criticized him as an outsider and extremist. But he also justified to a larger audience the purpose and tactics of taking immediate action in nonviolent protest.
Rieder, who examined the letter's origins and significance in the book "Gospel of Freedom," said the epistle, partly written from a dimly lit jail cell, played a key role in awakening a broader white audience both within and without the church to how segregation contradicted Christian, Jewish and overall American values of equality and justice.
Rieder explained that the religious leaders and activists who sat on the rostrum at the Lincoln Memorial represented a "confluence of a major part of the Black movement with the larger ferment in American Christianity and Judaism" collectively standing up against a status quo of racism that they argued had no theological or constitutional justification.
Morris said there was also a practical purpose to broadening the movement's base of support beyond the Black church. Organizers said the event would attract 100,000 to the nation's capital, which would require the participation and resources of others, and King saw religious groups as potential allies.
"They were needing allies from many different groups, and with the movement rooted in moral and religious precepts it made a great deal of sense to reach out to various religious groups," Morris said.
The speeches
The other religious leaders participating in the March on Washington program were as aware as King of the influence faith would have in stamping out racism on a national and local level.
"If all members and all ministers … were indeed ready to stand and march with you for jobs and freedom for the Negro people, together with all the Roman Catholic Church and all the synagogues of America, the battle for full civil rights and dignity would be already won," Eugene Carson Blake, clerk for the United Presbyterian Church USA and vice chairman of race relations for the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, told the throngs that reached to the Washington Monument.
Mathew Ahmann, executive director of the National Catholic Conference of Interracial Relations, asked listeners to search their souls to determine how much longer they could tolerate discrimination and injustice.
"Who can call himself a man, and take part in a system of segregation which frightens the white man into denying what he knows to be right, into denying the law of his God?" he asked.
Expressing empathy for Black Americans and their history of oppression, Rabbi Joachim Prinz recalled the Jewish people's suffering as slaves in Egypt and their persecution during the Nazi regime in Germany while citizens there looked on in silence.
"America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent," Prinz said. "It must speak up and act, from the President down to the humblest of us, and not for the sake of the Negro, not for the sake of the Black community, but for the sake of the image, the idea and the aspiration of America itself."
All the speakers, both religious and secular, conveyed the consistent message that segregation and discrimination were everyone's problem, not just the oppressed. But it was King's address that remains the most powerful and inspirational, articulating the sins of past and present America and describing what the future could hold if the nation would rid itself of racism.
Lischer, who wrote about King's life as a preacher and reformer in the book "Preacher King," said the Baptist pastor's speech drew from past sermons he had given and was refined to appeal to a larger audience beyond a congregation of sympathetic Black believers.
Among the borrowed elements is the famous "I have a dream ..." segment, which Lischer said dated back to King's sermons in the late 1950s and was used shortly before at a gathering in Detroit. That lends some credence to the story that King launched into that part of his speech — which was not part of his prepared text — at the prompting of gospel singer Jackson, who called out from her seat on the rostrum, "Tell them about the dream, Martin."
Before that moment, King had been reading from a manuscript detailing how the nation had not lived up to its promise that all people are free and guaranteed certain rights. But at a point in the original text marked by an asterisk, King looked out on the audience and expounded on a future filled with opportunity and without discrimination or bigotry.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," King said.
Lischer describes how instinct took over as King looked up at the clouds as he spoke, giving a familiar signal to Black worshippers that he was prophesying and looking into the future. King described his southern homeland transformed "into an oasis of freedom and justice," and then borrowed from Old Testament prophets and patriotic songs before closing with the lyrics of a Black spiritual, "Free at last, Free at last, great God almighty, we are free at last."
"It's poetry, which is heightened speech, and heightened speech is filled with metaphor and reaches down deeper into the human heart than prosaic speech," Lischer said. "It's not enough on an occasion like that to just state the truth. You have to sing the truth to reach people."
Religious roots
King, the son and grandson of Baptist pastors, was a master of the prophetic style of preaching common in Black Christian churches, Lischer said. But King stepped out of the mold by taking that preaching tradition outside the walls of the church.
"He joined the tradition of prophetic preaching with certain forms of progressive political thinking, creating a brand new audience for the Black sermon who had never experienced anything like that before," Lischer said. "He enlarged the congregation to create a national congregation."
The goal of the March on Washington to enlist a broad coalition of religious groups to push forward the civil rights agenda worked.
Presbyterian ministers and laity traveled to Mississippi to register voters. Mennonites and Quakers formed missions to help rebuild Black Christian churches that had been burned or destroyed by segregationists. And the white activists who took part in protests and voter registration drives in the South were "ridiculously disproportionately Jewish," Rieder said.
"King's advisers in the North also understood the importance of Jewish financial support to the Civil Rights movement," he added.
The Civil Rights Act, which had lingered in Congress the year of the March on Washington, was signed into law the following year. The Voting Rights Act came in 1965.
During the past decade, scholars and historians have reexamined the Civil Rights movement, with some making the case that without religion and the belief that God was on their side, the movement's organizers and footsoldiers wouldn't have endured the violent backlash to boycotts, marches, civil disobedience to segregation laws and other direct action.
"It was natural for Blacks to turn to the church in the Civil Rights movement as it was always this solid rock amid oppression," Morris said. "You could summon up a great deal of courage through religion. It could empower people to confront all kinds of obstacles, including violence."
And religion proved to be an effective tool to enlist others outside of the Black church to join in the cause. Morris said that was mainly done by reminding Christians and Jews that they couldn't call themselves true believers if they stood by and allowed racism and oppression to go on around them.
"All religions stand on moral grounds. Theologically speaking there was not much difference between the Black and white churches," Morris said. "The Civil Rights movement challenged the white church to live up to all of the principles that they embraced."


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BASF announced it is lifting its declaration of Force Majeure with respect to citral-based aroma chemicals, as well as vitamin A and vitamin E products for human and animal nutrition. The citral plant had to be shut down after a fire on March 12, 2014, and the company consequently had to declare Force Majeure. However, BASF was able to stay within the announced shutdown period of four weeks starting March 19, 2014. Meanwhile, the company implemented measures to limit the consequences of the situation and was continuously informing customers on its development. Product supply will normalize within the framework of delivery lead times and respective inventory levels.
Sederma unveiled a new web experience with the Russian language. The site includes a product finder, downloadable formulations, educational and informational content, and access to the extranet, which allows Sederma customers to access and download more detailed information and documentation about its range of products.
Seatons launched a new guide to natural oils, butters and waxes for men's care.
Beraca International North America announced it has expanded its operations in the U.S. and is moving into direct sales in the Northeast and Midwest territories, which were previously served by DeWolf Chemical and Glenn Corporation, respectively. The company still uses distributors in other territories of North America and has no plans to go direct in those areas. Beraca believes this move will increase the overall transparency with its customers and create sustainable relationships necessary to meet Beraca's growth goals. Also, Beraca was invited to the recent World Economic Forum on Latin America in Panama City, Panama, which brought together more than 600 leaders from government, industry, civil society and academia from over 50 nations to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the region. And in addition to representing Brazil in the forum, Beraca also was selected as a Global Growth Company alongside 15 other global companies.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, Symrise announced it will open a site for research, development and the manufacturing of sustainable ingredients from the Amazon region. The Ecoparque, an industrial condominium, promotes and combines sustainability and the manufacturing of high-quality products. Within the facility, Symrise plans to explore, develop and manufacture high-quality products from indigenous resources.
Silab received the 2014 Cosmetics & Toiletries R&D Award in the Best New Ingredient category for its active Volunage. Rich in peony oligosaccharides (Paeonia albiflora), Volunage is a natural replumping active ingredient that combats premature aging by regulating and controlling cellular communication between the reticular dermis and the hypodermis.
Evonik's hair and scalp care active ingredient Sphingony won a 2014 BSB Innovation Award at in-cosmetics. Sphingony is a naturally occurring, skin-identical sphingolipid that prevents hair loss by addressing scalp health and rebalancing the life cycle of the hair.
Alban Muller International was awarded a gold Green Ingredient Award during the 2014 in-cosmetics event for its scurvy grass extract, which was custom developed for the Clarins Capital Lumière range. The plant, which can grow on even the most hostile soils, was discovered at the Herboretum. The Herboretum, a garden which protects local plants and whose philosophy is that "there are no weeds, only plants of which we don't yet know the virtues," highlights the importance of preserving this promising natural heritage for the future.
Induchem was awarded the silver Innovation Award for its use of green chemistry and the demonstrated efficacy of its Redensyl ingredient. Rendensyl is a hair care cosmetic active ingredient based on regenerative medicine research. It targets hair follicle stem cells to reactivate their division and stimulate their initiation of the anagen phase. It also contains two patented molecules from Induchem: DHQG and EGCG2.
Myramaze from Rahn received Bronze in the category "Innovative Raw Materials—Natural Products" in the BSB Innovation Awards for cosmetics and raw materials during in-cosmetics 2014.
Indena S.A.S. and the Chinese company Youcare Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. participated in the Forum Économique Franco-Chinois, organized by the Comité France Chine to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations among China and France in commemoration of the Chinese president's visit to France.
The Society of Cosmetic Chemists (SCC) announced a revamped SCC website. The new website represents a major improvement over the past website, including innovative branding, real-time news and events, updates, and improved referral services. Additional features will be debuted in the coming year as well, including improved chapter news availability, as well as a new membership database system that will allow for improved e-commerce and meeting registration functionality.
Silab's fourth Silab Days event will take place on June 19-20, 2014, at Silab in Brive, France. The event will include the inauguration of its new production unit (UPF), a unit dedicated to actives issued from biotechnologies. Also, the first day's theme is water, and the second day includes a guided tour of the Silab site, a Q&A session and more.
People News
Dorsett and Jackson hired Peter Thiessen for a sales position calling on cosmetic and personal care accounts in southern California.
New Launches
TRI-K Industries developed a unique, multifunctional protein that targets anti-aging for hair care. Baobab Tein NPNF is an exotic ingredient derived from baobab that helps to repair damage, increase hair strength, protect from UV damage, moisturize dry hair and nourish strands from root to tip. TRI-K is among the first to develop a baobab protein with specific benefits directly correlated to the amino acid composition. Studies were performed on African, Brazilian and Caucasian hair, all showing strong results. Baobab Tein NPNF is a five-in-one anti-aging solution for hair, and it is introduced with TRI-K's new preservative system, NPNF (nonparaben, non-formaldehyde).
DSM demonstrated its commitment to "revealing the true power of beauty"—the heart of its new identity launched last year for the beauty and personal care market—at in-cosmetics 2014. The company presented a range of beauty care ingredients and concepts through the sensorial world of beauty, including Valvance a range of sensory and visual modifiers. A sensory line with cross-segmental roots, it has been developed with DSM's expertise in all aspects of skin and sun care. With the newly developed "Bright Eye" and "Shine Control & Pore Minimizer" concepts featuring Valvance customers not only get strong immediate results but the assurance of a fully substantiated consumer benefit. DSM also presented the next level of its Ultimate UV Protection platform, turning day care with UV protection and beach sunscreens into desirable formulations optimizing both performance and sensory characteristics. It also featured Regu-Science, an active carefully isolated and purified from Asparagus officinalis "Grolim." With its unique mechanism of action, this asparagus variety offers a solution to the naturally occurring cellular aging process by stimulating skin's own autophagy capabilities, thus helping to delay signs of cellular aging by decades. And in hair care, DSM showcased Phytantriol to repair, enhance and protect hair from root to tip.
Oat Cosmetics is expanding its ingredient portfolio by introducing Oat Silk. Oat Silk is an oat flour extract designed to offer textural modification of skin care and color cosmetic formulations. At inclusion rates as low as 1%, Oat Silk can transform the sensory attributes of the most basic emulsions by imparting a luxuriant and silky feel to skin care creams and lotions. It also works well for color cosmetic formulations, as it demonstrates high compactability due to its fine particle size. Oat Silk is a very fine off-white powder produced by fine milling the oat kernel after removing the outer bran layer. Unlike other cereal flours, oat flour is naturally high in polar lipids, which increase the ingredient's efficacy and functionality. And when incorporated into beauty product applications, it has a brightening and mattifying effect on skin tone.
Lessonia is introducing its Celluloscrub at the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists (NYSCC) Supplier's Day 2014. Celluloscrub is a natural powder designed to replace polyethylene beads in beauty products as facial cleansers, exfoliating body wash, or body scrubs. The natural scrub is manufactured with modified cellulose extracted from wood pulp. It is a 100% renewable and biodegradable material that can be safely used, and it offers a white, stable color, the same abrasiveness as PE beads. It also has as a good suspension capacity due to its low density, and it is worldwide approved (including China). It is an eco friendly material that is safe and classified in the GRAS list of substances.


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Show All Answers
Overestimate, within reason.
From medium to large projects, we are aware that it may be hard to determine how many staff hours it will take to implement. Please project costs as best you can. The actual staff salaries and time will be tracked through the Enterprise Asset Management System (EAM).


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Show All Answers
It is a program required by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to detect and prevent other (non-drinking) water sources from entering the public water system.
Cross-connections potentially enable other (non-drinking) water sources of unknown quality to co-mingle with the public water system. Our backflow prevention program identifies and prevents cross-connections. A backflow prevention device will be required if a potential for cross-connection exists.
If your home water system is connected to a source of water other than your water supply - a cross-connection has occurred. "Indirect" cross-connections may occur by garden hoses and temporary connections that may be connected for only a few minutes. Direct cross-connections are more permanent hard-pipe arrangements.
Backflow is the backward flow of water through a pipe into the public water system. The normal direction of water flow is from the utility water main to homes or businesses. The backflow of water from home plumbing systems into community drinking water happens when water is pulled backward due to a pressure loss in the utility main pipe or pushed back by a pressure source like a well pump.
Contamination of drinking water is usually the result of cross-connections of piping between your drinking water and some other source such as an irrigation well, pond, swimming pool, or Clear Lake. The American Water Works Association (AWWA) estimates over 100,000 cross-connections occur each day - half of these from garden hoses. Backflow preventers are designed and installed to prevent the flow of water backwards through the pipe.
This is a temporary cross-connection that may exist for a short period of time. A good example of an indirect cross-connection is a garden hose attached to an outside hose bib with the end of the hose submerged in a pail, swimming pool, or pesticide dispenser. Of additional concern is that some people use the garden hose to flush out sewers and drain pipes.
Yes. Lake County Ordinance Number 1462 requires a backflow prevention device for wells. If your well is not currently cross-connected, the potential exists for a connection to occur during pump priming, maintenance, or alteration of your irrigation pump and well.
In order to protect the community water system as much as possible and meet state requirements, the backflow preventer needs to be installed as close to the water meter as possible.
Yes, there are several methods to cover and protect the backflow prevention assembly from weather, vandals, and lawn mowing equipment.
The backflow preventer is a mechanical device that needs maintenance just like a car. The annual test indicates if the internal check valves and mechanics are working properly and protecting your water.
The relief valve is installed to prevent water pressure from building up too high when the water in a water heater expands. The relief valve can be replaced with a small expansion tank that does not leak. Plugging or removing the relief valve could cause damage to your water heater or plumbing.


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Currington Dumped As All-Star Act
Charlotte Motor Speedway has replaced country singer Billy Currington as the pre-race act before next month's All-Star race.
Currington was charged Thursday with making terroristic threats and abuse of an elderly person. He was released from a Georgia jail after posting a $27,700 bond.
Each of the charges is a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.
Charlotte Motor Speedway President Marcus Smith said Friday that double-platinum singer-songwriter Josh Turner will perform the pre-race concert before the May 18 race. Smith cited Currington's arrest for the change.
Currington's hits include "Pretty Good At Drinkin' Beer," `'That's How Country Boys Roll" and "People Are Crazy."


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I have been dealing with this problem for a couple of days but couldn't find a solution. I've posted on a forum before but nobody answered. Any help?
A couple of days ago a problem started to occur. I can't watch YouTube videos anymore. When I open a video, the animation goes on and on… until the message "an error has occurred". Very very very rarely sometimes a video loads. (Today it never happened, yesterday only once)
Like I said, a couple of days ago it was all working. I didn't do any updates. After this problem, I've installed every update, didn't solve the problem.
It is not browser specific, Google Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Opera… All have the same problem.
It is YouTube specific, I can watch videos on Facebook (not loaded through YouTube) and vimeo and more.
I have reinstalled the flash-plugin, didn't solve. (Yet it is not about flash)
It is not about my network, using the same network, Windows Laptop, iPhone, Android Tablet all load v
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32 Bit
$ uname -a
Linux marvin 3.2.0-45-generic-pae #70-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 29 20:31:05 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
$ dpkg -l |grep "chrome\|firefox\|opera\|chromium\|flash"
ii adobe-flash-properties-gtk 188.8.131.525-0precise1 GTK+ control panel for Adobe Flash Player plugin version 11
ii adobe-flashplugin 188.8.131.525-0precise1 Adobe Flash Player plugin version 11
ii chromium-browser 25.0.1364.160-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 Chromium browser
ii chromium-browser-l10n 25.0.1364.160-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 chromium-browser language packages
ii chromium-codecs-ffmpeg 25.0.1364.160-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 Free ffmpeg codecs for the Chromium Browser
ii eject 2.1.5+deb1+cvs20081104-9 ejects CDs and operates CD-Changers under Linux
ii firefox 21.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.3 Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
ii firefox-globalmenu 21.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.3 Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla - Unity menubar integration
ii firefox-gnome-support 21.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.3 Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla - GNOME support
ii firefox-locale-en 21.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.3 English language pack for Firefox
ii google-chrome-stable 27.0.1453.110-r202711 The web browser from Google
ii libcrypt-passwdmd5-perl 1.3-10 interoperable MD5-based crypt() for perl
ii opera 12.15.1748 Fast and secure web browser and Internet suite
ii xserver-xorg-video-openchrome 1:0.2.904+svn1050-1 X.Org X server -- VIA display driver
Any suggestions?
Sorry if it is a repost, it's hard to find this problem in the dozens of "restricted-extras not installed" problems…


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EUSA Pharma Community Access Patient Program
Most programs have income, age, and other eligibility requirements. At this current time we don´t have the eligibility information for EUSA Pharma's program.
Please check back regularly as we are updating our database of information daily. Please feel free to contact the company directly or read their available website information to determine if you are eligible.
What´s Next?
Fill out the program enrollment form located to your right. If you don't see an enrollment form available please call EUSA Pharma program directly. After filling out the enrollment form please bring the form to your doctor for proper signatures and procedures. Do not forget a self stamped envelope for them to mail in your application to the program.
Other Tips
- If you have any questions please call the EUSA Pharma program directly.
- Fill out as much of the information on the enrollment form as possible. The more information you have pre-filled the easier the progrm is to enroll in.
- Write down the refill dates for your program and set a reminder here on PatientAssistance.com so that you don't run out of medication.
- Do not write messy on your forms as this will delay any response.
- Call and write thank you notes to AAI Pharma Inc. program. Without their help millions of people will be without medication.


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It's official: Arnold Schwarzenegger will be included in the cast of the next Terminator movie.
"But wait, wasn't this already established? Didn't Digital Trends cover this same story two years ago?" the more observent among you may now be wondering. Yes, we did publish a story in 2011 which stated that Schwarzenegger had been confirmed for a role in Terminator 5 – until somebody gives us an official title, that's what we're calling this film – but at that time the film was slated to be helmed by Fast & Furious director Justin Lin. In the two years since that article was written, the film has remained in limbo and Lin has dropped off the project. Effectively, the Justin Lin Terminator sequel is an entirely separate movie from the Terminator 5 we're discussing today.
This version of the film is slated to be written by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier. We brought you word of the duo's involvement last week, and offered a handful of reasons why Kalogridis' involvement at least gives us hope that Terminator 5 might prove a superior film to 2009's Terminator: Salvation. Schwarzenegger returning to reprise his most famous role is certainly a huge boost for this film's potential, but as we stated a week ago we never had much doubt that the Governator would return to the dystopian sci-fi franchise that belongs to him as much as it does Terminator creator James Cameron.
Of course, we're only assuming that Schwarzenegger will appear in Terminator 5 as the time-hopping T-800 cyborg. Devotees of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines might remember a deleted scene from that film in which Schwarzenegger plays an American soldier named William Candy who speaks with a laughably horrible, obviously dubbed Southern accent. We want to think that Schwarzenegger's presence in Terminator 5 will be undeniably cool and harken back to the actor's glory days in the late 1980s and early '90s, but the man is currently pushing 66 years of age. Don't get us wrong, at 66 Schwarzenegger is still in far better shape than most of us, but it's doubtful that he's not as spry as he was two decades ago.
Another, less impressive option is that the film may make use of Schwarzenegger in a more technically laden way, just as he was in 2009's Terminator Salvation. In that film (spoilers), a Terminator bearing the CGI-imposed face of the Governator fought with Christian Bale's John Connor, and severely wounds him, thus leading to one of the dumbest medical procedures film has ever seen. With a path laid down by 2010's Tron: Legacy, the filmmakers could always try to ape the Jeff Bridges route, and use technology and makeup to make Schwarzenegger look (somewhat) like he did in past decades.
We're still waiting to hear on who might be directing this movie and so far there have yet to be any plot details released, but just as soon as such information emerges we'll bring it to you. After the last two Terminator films nearly sunk the franchise in the eyes of many devoted fans,hopefully Terminator 5 might turn things around. Or, at the very least, that it won't be a solid two hour block of Schwarzenegger mugging at the camera in a pitiful attempt to remind viewers of his former glory – we got enough of that in his Terminator flick.


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I don't normally post on new releases (this is, after all, just a dusty old closet), but I'm so excited about the forthcoming Where The Wild Things Are film, directed by Spike Jonze , that I had to post a few screen caps from the newly released trailer. Watch it in its entirety here.
3 years ago


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This week, I am excited to be hosting three quick give-aways in honor of Sukkot. Each sweepstakes will close on Wednesday night, with the winners of all three being announced on Thursday morning.
The Sukkah Project was so pleased with the KOAB response to the earlier sukkah banner giveaway (and to that awesome 5% off coupon code) that they offered to give away another banner to one lucky reader! Wow!
This gorgeous Chag Sukkot Sameach Banner will surely enliven any sukkah!
By renowned Israeli artist Baruch Nachshon (2008), the banner envisions Chag Ha'Sukkot in the age of Moshiach. (Retail value: $60.) The banner is printed with the latest silk-screen and dye sublimation techniques on colorful, weather-proof nylon fabric, and comes with dowel pockets with dowels for hanging.
If you would like to add this gorgeous banner to your sukkah, simply complete the instructions on the Rafflectopter below. The first entry is mandatory: Tell me what one person – past or present – you would invite to a meal in your sukkah. The other entries are optional – but the more you enter, the better your chances are of winning!
(If you are viewing this post in your email, please click through to the blog to enter the giveaway.)
Disclaimer: The Sukkah Project will provide the banner to the winner KOAB reader. I was not otherwise compensated for running this giveaway.


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Search results
Patricia Preciado Martin papers
Arizona author Patricia Preciado Martin was born in Prescott and raised in Tucson. She received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Arizona in 1960, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Her collections of short stories and oral histories ...
adhoward - 2024-01-30 15:36


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NEW YORK (AP) — Panera CEO Ron Shaich realizes that ordering at his chain can be chaotic.
the bakery cafe's customers are given a buzzer that lets them know when
their food is ready. Then they get into a "mosh pit" to fight for their
food. Next they play a game he calls "Find Your Food" — collecting a
sandwich in one place, drinks in another and condiments in yet another.
confusion is a problem for Panera Bread Co., which has seen its sales
growth slow as customers go elsewhere. Last year, sales at established
locations rose 2.3 percent, compared with a 5.7 percent increase the
previous year.
Now, the St. Louis-based company is planning to
overhaul the way people order in a project called "Panera 2.0" The plan
includes letting customers order online or with their mobile devices to
have their food ready to go at a set time. Also in the works are
in-store touchscreens where customers can more easily customize their
sandwiches. Workers will take the food to tables as well.
It's a
major undertaking that has been in testing at more than a dozen
locations since 2010. The first stage of the national rollout will be
the "rapid pick-up" option that lets customers place mobile orders as
much as five days in advance. The full rollout to the company's more
than 1,700 locations will take several years.
Shaich says the idea
is to eliminate the obstacles customers have to overcome to fulfill
their "lust" for the company's soups, sandwiches and salads. Eventually,
he said the goal is to offer "personalized menus" on mobile devices
based on a customer's order history.
Q: How did the idea for this come about?
As a CEO, I'm paid to figure out where the world is going, not where it
is. Today's consumer wants it their way. They want it customized. We
have to have the system for that.
We're entering a world where so
many consumers are growing up in an omni-channel world. They want it
where they want it and when they want it. And the reality is we're
either going to have the capability of delivering into that or we're
We're three to five years away. You're going to pick up your
iPhone and you're going to go, "Yo. Siri. I want a Bacon Turkey Bravo at
Q: Tell us about how Panera 2.0 is going to work.
Like most restaurants, Panera operates with a one-size-fits-all system.
But the reality is that's not necessarily how I need it and want it.
drive my kids to school three times a week. We stop at the Panera by my
office. I used to pick up the phone about seven or eight minutes out
from the store and I'd call the store and I'd say, 'hey, can you take my
order?' I'd always be worried that they didn't get the order right, so I
made sure they read the order back.
I'd hand my son my credit
card, and he'd run in and we'd be out in a minute. I'd say to myself,
'this is wonderful, but it's only working for the CEO. What about the
other 8 million people?'
We began to think about how we change
that guest experience. Why couldn't you order food on the Web, order
your food in multiple ways and have the food made as you were driving to
the store? Why couldn't you walk into the store, walk past the line
that's always there? Walk over to a special area where your food is
waiting for you?
Q: How does the eat-in experience change?
It changes the whole thing. Imagine a world where I could place my
order (on a mobile device) as I sat down. And imagine a world where it
actually knew what my order was. I order the same latte, two pumps, not
three, of caramel. Extra foamy with skim milk. I do it 20 times a week.
Why couldn't it remember that?
We began to imagine a world where
you could place an eat-in order from the table and have the food brought
right to you. Or you could go to a kiosk and place the order. Or yet
again, you could go to a register.
Everybody is talking about
technology in the restaurant industry. It's the new thing. But
technology doesn't matter if it doesn't change the guest experience.
Q: When will customers actually see all these changes?
This will roll out to the system in the next 36 months. The first
things that will come is the ability to do rapid pickup. You place the
order and designate the time you want it to be picked up, walk into that
cafe and have it sitting there waiting for you on a specific bookshelf.
You don't have to wait for the food. That will be out within 2014.
Q: Have you seen labor costs go down in the restaurants where you roll out Panera 2.0?
This isn't about cutting labor. We're not cutting labor. There will be
labor reductions at order input when (orders) go to 30 percent or more
digital, which we're already running. But we're taking that labor and
we're putting it into production.
We're taking labor and we're
using it to do things like deliver to the table. So what we're saying
is, let's put labor where it puts warmth and value into your experience.
Q: You talk about the "desire-friction ratio" — tell us what that's about.
Everything comes down to desire and friction. How much do I want it,
and how painful is it for me to get? Desire is: Do I want to walk across
the street? Is it relevant to me? Do I crave it?
The other side
of it is friction. One form of friction is dollars. But another form of
friction is psychic energy. It's time. It's pain. And so a lot what
we're trying to do is reduce the friction while continuing to drive the
Q: The company is doing so much to change the way orders are placed. How is the menu going to change?
The underlying deeper trend is a huge movement toward customization and
personalization. And ultimately where this whole world of Panera 2.0
leads is to a world where we're able to deliver the experience you want.
Today we operated under a one size fits all mentality — the menu board.
I've got 50 items. But I've got 150 ingredients in my cafe. I can make
thousands of different things. But I wait for you to customize it.
think we're going to continually enter a world of allowing us to
address smaller and smaller niches (through mobile ordering), ultimately
to niches of one.
Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or


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Democratic Supporters Of AT&T/T-Mobile Deal Received Campaign Donations From AT&T
Will it come to anyone's surprise that of the 72 Democratic lawmakers that sent a letter to the FCC and Justice department supporting the AT&T/T-Mobile merger that 66 of those lawmakers received campaign contributions from AT&T. Totaling over $500,000 in contributions most of the donations came from political action committees associated with AT&T, who remains the single-largest corporate donor to Congressional members over the last two decades. Want to know how widespread AT&T's influence is? During the last campaign election cycle AT&T gave money to 391 of the 435 House members and 78 of the 100 Senate members.
Today's lesson kids, if you can't beat em, buy em.
Check out the full list of donations on PaidContent.org.


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Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NEW YORK (AP) - After years of sticking with plain-vanilla bond funds, investors are starting to turn their backs on them and opt for stocks instead. The move isn't big enough to be the "great rotation" from bonds to stocks that many experts predicted -- it's more of a good rotation -- but fund managers say more is on the way.
Investors plugged $198 billion into stock mutual funds through the first 11 months of the year. That's the most since the dot-com stock bubble in 2000, according to Morningstar. Bond mutual funds are also taking in money, but the dollars are increasingly going only to niche corners of the market. Investors pulled $73 billion out of the largest category of bond mutual funds, intermediate-term bond funds, over that time. It marks a stark shift in behavior. Since the 2008 financial crisis, investors have largely sought the safety of bonds and shunned stocks.
Heading into this year, many strategists expected investors to dump their bonds and move into stocks en masse. Bonds had served investors well for three decades, but interest rates had fallen sharply. Stocks, meanwhile, have the potential to offer bigger returns. Early this year, there was no rotation, as investors were comfortable adding money to both stock and bond mutual funds.
"Then a switch went off in May," says Michael Rawson, a fund analyst at Morningstar. That's when worries about rising interest rates began to spike, which hurt bond prices. Investors have since increasingly shown their preference for stocks over traditional types of bond funds. Consider:
_ In June alone, investors pulled $16 billion out of municipal bond mutual funds, according to Morningstar. Through November, investors have yanked a net total of $49 billion this year.
_ Net investment in stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds this year will likely top that of the four prior years combined, according to Strategic Insight, which tracks the mutual fund industry.
_ In a sign of how the tide has turned, Vanguard earlier this week closed one of its stock mutual funds to most new accounts and re-opened two of its bond funds. Funds typically close to new investors when they're attracting lots of money and want to keep from getting too big and unwieldy. They re-open when they want to attract more dollars.
A major driver for the shift is fear that rising interest rates will hurt bond funds. When interest rates rise, prices for existing bonds fall because their yields suddenly look less attractive. During the summer, such worries flared as the yield on the 10-year Treasury note nearly doubled from 1.6 percent at the start of May to roughly 3 percent in September.
Stocks, meanwhile, have climbed around the world amid rising corporate earnings, stimulus from the Federal Reserve and hope that economies from Europe to Japan are improving. The Standard & Poor's 500 index set a record high earlier this week.
To be sure, most investors will always have some interest in bonds. They tend to be less volatile than stocks, and the need for income investments will rise as more Baby Boomers retire. Pension funds and other institutional investors also need the steadiness that bonds provide.
"You need to have that anchor to lower volatility," says Avi Nachmany, director of research at Strategic Insight.
Investors used to flip between investments quickly and opportunistically, Nachmany says. But now, they increasingly stick to a plan and keep a certain percentage of their portfolios in stocks and a certain percentage in bonds. Target-date retirement mutual funds have grown in popularity, for example, and they always keep a portion of their investments in bonds.
This means money will continue to flow into bond funds, particularly those that can better weather rising interest rates. These include floating-rate funds, whose yields ratchet higher with broad market rates, and possibly high-yield bond funds. Investors are also turning to mutual funds that use hedge-fund techniques to try to provide steadier returns, Nachmany says.
Investors who have made the move from bonds to stocks have set themselves up well, if Wall Street strategists are to be believed. Most investment banks are forecasting continued gains for stocks in 2014, though more modest than this year's 24.5 percent surge. This year is on track to be the best for the S&P 500 in at least a decade. Investment banks also are calling for continued struggles for bonds.
"Investors have begun to see the potential for stocks after 10 to 12 years of getting not much return, versus high-quality bonds," says John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management. "I think it's just the beginning" of the rotation into stocks from bonds.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Saturday, July 6, 2013
Can blind people draw?
Tommy Edison, who has been blind since birth, takes on the task with courage and humor. (Direct link to video).
The challenge is not just remembering where you put the lines. There are tactile drawing tools he might have used. The problem is that a blind person's apprehension of form is primarily tactile, and therefore viewpoint-independent. As he puts it: "Everything I experience is three dimensional. So it's very difficult for me to imagine putting a three dimensional thing onto a flat piece of paper."
He visualizes both a cat and a car from the side, but made up from details gathered by the hands: The car has only wheels and doors, but no roof, hood, or outer contour. A three-quarter view or foreshortened view would probably be hard to conceptualize.
A good challenge for sighted artist is to do the exact opposite of what Tommy Edison is doing: to look at an object, and to apprehend the felt form, ignoring appearances.
Previously on GurneyJourney
Seeing with the hands
Tactile drawing (using yarn on Velcro)
Check out Tommy Edison's Movie Reviews
12 comments:
- Roberto said...
Very interesting! Did you know this other man? http://www.wimp.com/blindpaint/
- July 6, 2013 at 11:32 AM
- Roberto said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- July 6, 2013 at 11:32 AM
- Unknown said...
!!!the third paragraph,"A good challenge for the sighted artist...."is a perfect description of EXACTLY what the first exercise in" The Natural Way to Draw", "Contour Drawing" is really about!![the Modeled drawing exercise,too!]I hear people talk about this exercise as if were primarily just a visual task.But if you approach it this way ,as it was intended it can be mind altering[..if not life altering,as I humbly attest].[CO-]incidently in the same chapter is a photo of a sculpture of a violinist made by a woman who was blind since birth.[THe car thing reminded me of story of the three blind men describing an elephant!!thanks James this is all so interesting.!
- July 6, 2013 at 8:52 PM
- Diana Moses Botkin said...
I love Tommy's humor and charming drawings. This video reminds me of an exercise I have students do who look too much at their paper. They wind up drawing what they think they see (such as a circle instead of an ellipse for the top of a cylinder). Blind contour drawing is useful to get them to look at the subject.
For the exercise, one must look only at the object to be drawn and not at the paper at all. After doing even a few of these, it is apparent one should look back and forth repeatedly from subject to paper to get a likeness. - July 6, 2013 at 10:42 PM
- K_tigress said...
Interesting. It reminds me of this show I watched awhile ago. It featured Stan Lee as show host and they had these amazing people with extraordinary gifts. One person in particular was very much like this person you've written about, This artist is also blind since birth. I think he was born and raised in Iraq. I can't remember his name. But it was truly remarkable how he can draw and paint scenes of cities. Some how he just does it. Going to have to catch that show again if I can to see how he can do this stuff.
- July 6, 2013 at 11:56 PM
- Revo said...
Interesting vid & links. Now I'd really like to try some tactile drawing. :)
As for the problem of the viewpoint independency/imagining of 2D:
Couldn't it be described like holding out a straight stick, only changing it's angles (and maybe length)?
The stick would basically only touch what is not covered from your stand-/viewpoint.
No idea if it would be useful to draw from imagination, because I can't imagine the way blind people think or imagine these things. ( Those that are blind since birth at least.)
But I could also imagine actually doing just that. Holding a stick and tracing forms.
Probably only works for smaller things , but in some way those same movements ,tracing the edges with a stick, could be used to draw the thing in 2D.
That would probably also mean, one could train someone blind to draw something legit looking, by simply making them trace and memorize the movements. (Could also be made simpler, by making a simplified flatter version, just to trace the lines.)
A nice trick to make people believe in a miracle, too.
Can't say I like that part of it, though.
If blind or visually impaired people want to draw/paint, more power to them. But I don't like it to be used to deceive people.
I would be -very- careful with those "blind painters" that produce things that actually look like something.
Either it's a trick (and not that impressive), they are just called "blind" (but actually see quite a bit) or they are lying altogether.
I mean, there were "blind" painters found out to be copying photographs...while claiming otherwise(of course).
So, yeah.
- July 7, 2013 at 11:35 AM
- Aldo Ojeda said...
This video makes me think that blind people's brains create the same symbols, or concepts, as sighted people. Which remembers me what philosopher Dan Dennett says: pictures in our heads are not really pictures.
- July 7, 2013 at 12:56 PM
- Roberto said...
@Revo: http://tinyurl.com/lv9zp26
Just because something is bizzarre or beyond our current comprehension doesn't necessarily mean that is a fraud. If I'm not mistaken this man is born without eyes, I think we can be pretty sure is not lying about being blind. - July 7, 2013 at 4:34 PM
- Nick Woolridge said...
John Kennedy (the psychology researcher, not the president) wrote a whole book on the drawings of the blind:
Many of these drawings are very sophisticated, especially when they use a medium that allows tactile lines... - July 8, 2013 at 2:58 PM
- Nadina Cardillo said...
Very interesting video, and your "tactile drawing" idea is very interesting.
For a long time when I began drawing I didn't understand why my drawings looked so "off". If I was copying a vase, and I got the outline perfectly (i.e. as I saw it from that point of view), then why didn't it really look like a vase?
When I understood that knowing the contours in your mind was much more important that seeing the real life object and copying it, a whole new world opened before me.
This blind man and the past me each had only half the perspective: He can only feel the contours while I could only see the outline.
This is why I love this blog, it makes me think haha - July 8, 2013 at 9:47 PM
- Revo said...
I think that might came out wrong. It's not that I think it's all impossible for a blind person to draw/paint. Although the ways I imagine it works, it just wouldn't be bizarre or all that impressive.
I do think though, that those claims should be carefully questioned. Especially if they sound bizarre.
All things I read about turned out to be frauds, mislabeled or with quite some info conveniently withheld. Probably because it's the story that sells(itself and the pictures), so more bizarre = better.
I just can't seem to like that. I like things a little more honest and informative.
As for the man you linked: There are some paintings I can perfectly imagine to be possible, with a little training.
Actually I wanted to tell you know, that this mans' "story" suffers from very similar obscurifications as the other ones. Because I found quite some things that were contradicting the "main headlines".
But funny enough, I just found a huge text(german though) featuring some parts with some of the same thoughts it seems, but with more to back it up. ( http://www.lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/content.php?nav_id=4280#_edn9 )
Much of his "story" and profile as it is presented, seems to be unfounded and just for making him seem more special and probably making money. And it directly contradicts what he himself says.(!)
Instead of the isolated blind child, that learned to paint basically on his own and by magic, it seems he was at least heavily pushed and coached by his father from a young age.(So he would be successful of course. Who would have guessed?) It suggests, that while he may not have been able to see, he had lots of heavy critical input from those that can. (And also sought it.)
That -to me- does make a huge difference, indeed. They put quite some emphasis on the opposite after all.
Sadly though, it also suggests, that the research being done on him is also biased by this wishful thinking and stylization of his person.
Aside from that, I read somewhere else that "no eyes" isn't all that correct either, and that he does have one eye that might have seen at some point.
Anyways...it's made to be obscure on purpose.:( I don't see why I should be any more trusting now. - July 8, 2013 at 10:55 PM
- Katy said...
This reminded me of a show I watched, awhile ago, about an artist who was blind from birth. The amazing thing about him was the beautiful paintings he created though he never saw colors, vistas, objects...etc.I think his name was Esref Armagan.
- July 10, 2013 at 7:37 AM